Most serious threat to the nation comes from within: Corruption

Sunday, February 5, 2012

What is the most serious threat to the future stability of the United States?
There are threats aplenty: Iran, China, -and Luzerne and Lackawanna counties.Luzerne County? Lackawanna County?
That area has its problems, most notably a shocking scandal that has led to the imprisonment of two Luzerne County judges for profiting from illicit sentencing of juveniles to a for-profit private prison, and another scandal, the prison terms of 11 years and 7 years handed down Monday to two Lackawanna County ex-commissioners for accepting bribes and kickbacks.
That is bad enough.
But the Citizens Voice newspaper of Wilkes-Barre says the problem goes deeper. Its Sunday story, "Corruption runs deep in the hills" of Northeastern Pennsylvania, says that the scandals are not the exception.
The problems of bribery, graft and corruption go back to the region's hard-coal mining days, according to people quoted in the newspaper article. Today, they are pervasive.
What does that have to do with the entire future of the nation?
Why is it that even the Chinese put their money into investments in the United States? So do the Russians, the Arab sheiks, and millionaires and billionaires from all over the world.
Sure, Swiss bank accounts and Cayman Islands investments are favorite parking places for investment millions. But nobody puts every penny into those places. Their economies are too small to promise sustained high yields.
The thing the United States has going for it is the rule of law.
We have courts that work
If a debt is owed, it can be collected through the courts without resort to bribery.
If a debt is claimed but is not owed, the claim can be rebuffed through the courts without resort to payoffs.
Nobody needs honest bankers more than crooks, unless it be honest investors.
So when judges take kickbacks and county commissioners take payoffs, they not only defraud the people who directly elected them. They stain the integrity of the entire country.
To hear the two commissioners tell it Monday before their sentencing, they are suffering horribly, they have lost everything, they are extremely sorry for their crimes - and, of course, they are banking on trying to weasel out of punishment via appeals. The right to appeal does not extend to saying one thing in sentencing court, "Guilty, but have mercy," and another thing in appeals, "I am not guilty."
Yes, their families will suffer.
But their conduct puts the entire nation at risk, for "Who will judge the judges?" if they and the leaders of government are not honest?
That's a serious threat to the future of the entire nation.
- Denny Bonavita